It may be a taxing time for Harry Redknapp, but Pete Sixsmith sees his Spurs team show Sunderland exactly what you need to be a Champions League team.

T S Eliot (not a renowned football fan) wrote that “April is the cruellest month”. For Sunderland fans, replace April with February and you have a truism if ever there was one.

February sorts out the teams who will and the teams who won’t. Go into March top of the League, be it FA Premier or Northern, and the chances are that you will finish the season there. Ditto at the bottom.

Hit a slump in February and you can wave goodbye to a top six finish – it happened in 2000 with 2 points out of 9 and again in 2001 with a similar return and with an FA Cup exit thrown in.

This year we have played three games in February and have lost all three. We have scored some good goals, played some neat and tidy football – and have defended like Stockport County on a bad day.

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Our brightest hope at full back since Mickey Gray? But can we hang on to him? Salut! Sunderland ponders the chances of securing Alan Hutton permanently …

Most Sunderland supporters who have seen anything of Alan Hutton are likely to agree that he is just the sort of player we need at the club on a permanent basis.

It has been like a breath of fresh air to see a full back so capable of getting forward and causing serious concern to opposing defences.
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Pete Sixsmith was pulled up here by a Spurs fan (Telboy) for suggesting in his Observer match verdict that it could have ended Sunderland 6 Tottenham 1. What Telboy couldn’t have realised was the Pete also said it might have been 3-3 (that less sexy bit being cut out). We shouldn’t be greedy, but there’s no denying 6-1 was strictly speaking feasible (two missed pens, one disallowed goal) and would have been very nice indeed …

It crossed my mind to use “Broken nose Bruce slaughters Flannel faced ‘Arry” as my seven-word summary, but I felt this might upset the sensitivities of any passing Spurs fans, so decided on the more prosaic words you can find elsewhere on this site .

It was a wonderfully exciting game of football and if Ellis Short and Niall Quinn wanted to present any wavering renewers with a good reason for parting with a wad of money for next season, then this game provided perfect ammunition.
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Pete Sixsmith knows no rest. No sooner had he left his seat in the East Stand after yesterday’s scintillating game than The Observer came on the phone for a verdict . As usual, we include the opposing supporter’s appraisal too …

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Salut! Sunderland has experienced some technical problems today, and this is a repeat of a post that appeared earlier. Our thanks to the many Spurs fans who came here for Part One of this week’s Who Are You? feature. Now for part two, in which we briefly discuss Tottenham greats: Jimmy Greaves, John White, Danny Blanchflower … Jurgen Klinsmann … Chris Waddle, Glenn Hoddle, Gary Lineker … and Thomas Andrew Huddlestone. We won’t suggest that inclusion of the last name might raise eyebrows away from White Hart Lane because he’d only go and break out hearts at the Stadium of Light on Saturday if we did. David Sapsted*, pictured at a Fleet Street “function”, and Bernie Kingsley**, who chairs the Tottenham Supporters’ Trust, don’t agree on everything but can be found purring in harmony on how good Tom Huddlestone is. They also talk about the White Lane Lane “reserves” now earning a crust on Wearside – and the view is dismissive in Bernie’s case – and offer differing verdicts on Steve Bruce (he’s either a “good manager” or a “bottom half manager”) …

Salut! Sunderland: What do you make of the Spurs old boys who are now at the Stadium of Light: Reid, Malbranque, Hutton and, of course, Bent?

Bernie: You’ve forgotten Fraizer Campbell and Marton Fulop. You are welcome to most of them. Malbranque was probably the one we were most disappointed to lose, but with more moves rumoured you are in danger of replacing Portsmouth as our reserve team in the EPL.

David: I never thought Bent got a fair crack of whip when he was with us. Like any striker, he needed a decent run in the side to prove his worth and he never got it. Since his move, he’s more than proved his point. You could say much the same this season about Pavlyuchenko, whom I have always rated and who, at long last, is getting the chance to show his mettle. I’m a fan of Hutton’s, too. I love the way he bombs forward, though I’ve always harboured doubts about his defensive capabilities. As for Steed….I’d have him on the pitch for any game, though probably not for more than 60 minutes these days.

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In which the Spurs keeper is invited to thank his lucky stars and pipe down …

There’s an awful lot of piffle from Brazil, and Heurelho Gomes is now beginning to get a bit irritating.

Comeonspurs.com quotes him as “blasting” Darren Bent with these words: “I didn’t think I would get sent off because I didn’t think it was a penalty. When I saw the ball was going out I pulled my arm back.

“It’s a difficult situation but it is his (Bent’s) job. The referee needs to know these things, that when a striker comes to the 18-yard box they try to dive for a penalty. They have to know.”

They also have to know, Mr Gomes, that goalkeepers are not always above a bit of foul play themselves.

If you haven’t seen it already, read what we’ve had to say about it today at this link.

Many Sunderland fans accept that we were very lucky to be awarded a penalty for the second-half incident (as well as being unlucky enough to have Darren in rare wasteful mood as he took the kick).

Perhaps Mr Gomes should accept that he was extremely fortunate to get away with the first half challenge on the same player.

My guess remains that Craig Gordon would have been dismissed in identical circumstances in either instance (wrongly, in my view, since the first warranted a yellow and the second as I have conceded, shouldn’t have been given). But as one Spurs-supporting pal has already put it: “Ah, you’re sounding like me when we lose.”

Colin Randall

* Image courtesy of A Love Supreme, where you can buy the T-shirt.

Fair’s fair. With the hindsight not available to most fans – or any referees – when controversial incidents actually occur, Salut! Sunderland accepts that Kevin Friend got the penalty about right. A slightly reckless challenge, but not one that merited a red card. Some SAFC fans go further and echo Spurs supporters (not all) by calling it a dive, even if they also feel it was a penalty “about to happen”. Friends again, Kevin? More on all this later but first Pete Sixsmith delivers his own considered post-match verdict …

A six hour coach journey after a scarcely deserved defeat does an awful lot to concentrate the mind. Somewhere in the middle of the old Great North Road, probably between Newark and Retford, I suffered a terrible attack of fairness, not something usually associated with disappointed Sunderland fans.
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